


I Heard Cathedral Bells

by acommontater



Series: Where Ever I May Find Her 'verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmates, trans!blayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 03:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4248192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you explain to your soulmate that you aren't exactly what they were expecting?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Heard Cathedral Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for this prompt from tumblr user adropofred/foxykurt: soulmates AU where the name that shows up on Kurt’s skin isn’t Blaine, it’s Blayne,and she hasn’t come out yet.

“Excuse me?”

The boy on the stairs ahead of him turned around.

“Can I ask you a question? I’m new here.”

The boy smiled at him and stuck out a hand for him to shake.

“My name’s Blaine.”

Kurt’s heart jumped into his throat. He forced his voice to come out normally.

“Kurt.” He shook the other boy’s hand.

Blaine’s expression didn’t change, giving Kurt no indication if he could be his Blayne. (He cursed the English language for being unable to tell how a person’s name was spelled by the sound alone.)

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you Mr….” Blaine trailed off purposefully.

“Hummel. Kurt Hummel.”

The other boy’s eyes went wide and his grip on Kurt’s hand- why hadn’t he let go yet?- tightened ever-so-slightly.

“Really?” Blaine voice shot up higher than Kurt’s, breathy and unsure.

“Yes…” Kurt’s heart was pounding. Blaine’s eyes were even wider now. He opened his mouth to speak again.

“I…”

“Anderson! Thad’ll have an aneurism if you’re late again! Get in here!”

The head of another blazer-clad boy had poked out from a room down the hallway to shout. He frowned at them and vanished back into the room. Blaine took a hesitant step towards the room. Kurt’s head was spinning.

“Your name’s Blayne Anderson?” He asked.

Blaine looked frantically from him to the room.

“Yes. No. Sort of- I need to talk to you. But, um, oh just come on.”

He pulled Kurt the rest of the way down the stairs and down the hall, where he could hear the opening strains of a vaguely familier song.

After the performance is over, Kurt considers trying to sneak away and return to Lima, but in stead finds himself frog-marched into a posh student lounge and a cup of coffee handed to him.

He hesitantly thanks them for being polite before beating him up, earning him an eye-roll from the boy who’d introduced himself as Wes, and chuckles from Blaine and the boy on the other side of the table, who’d said his name was David. (Kurt tries to sniff his coffee inconspicuously- they wouldn’t try to poison him, would they?)

“…we found it endearing.” David finishes.

Kurt clutches his non-poisonous cup of coffee.

“So, are you guys all gay?”

Blaine laughs shrilly, and Wes and David give him strange looks. Blaine coughs and composes himself.

“Ah, no. These two have girlfriends.”

“Oh. But you…” His eyes dart between the three boys. Wes smiles kindly at him.

“We have a zero-tolerance harassment rule…”

“…So everybody gets treated equally, regardless of who they are.” David finishes.

Kurt blinks at them slowly before turning to focus determinedly out the window. He would not cry over this. It was just a stupid rule that stupid, small-minded people didn’t understand and….

“I take it you’re having trouble at school.”

Kurt jumps as Blaine rests a hand on his.

“I..” His voice cracks horribly so he stops and tries again. “There’s this… neanderthal who’s made it his mission to make my life a living hell. And nobody seems to notice.”

“I know what you mean.” Blaine sighs. “I got… taunted at my old school and it.. really pissed me off. It was just like, hey, if you’re gonna act like that, you’re life’s just gonna be miserable.”

(She hadn’t thought that they’d notice the eyeliner, and a kilt was traditionally worn by a man, so she could almost close her eyes and pretend that she’s in a gown like the rest of the girls, being led around the gym by her soulmate.

She’d cried at the hospital when she woke up and found out that they’d had to shave her head- she’d spent two years fighting with her parents about the length of her hair.)

“Prejudice is just ignorance, Kurt.” Blaine squeezed his hand and let go.

“What, what do you think I should do?”

Let me see the name on your wrist and see if you’re really the person I’ve been searching for all of my life.

“Call him out- confront him. He won’t be able to defend himself from a direct confrontation.”

Kurt nods slowly, thinking it over. He could do that- confront Karofsky in a public area, maybe the quad?, and demand answers.

“Alright. I’ll give it a try. Hopefully it won’t go wrong and get my face rearranged.”

“I hope not- I like your face.”

Blaine almost matches the shade of red that Kurt’s face has gone. He can feel the tips of his ears burning.

“Um…” Blaine goes even redder. “Can I get you number? Just so you can let me know how everything goes?”

“Sure.” Kurt curses his fair complexion as Blaine rummages under the table for something.

Blaine slides a sticky-note and a pen across the table to Kurt. Kurt writes down his cell number and signs it with a flourish. One could never afford to get rusty when practicing for signing autographs. He slides it back to Blaine.

Blaine smiles at him, blush fading from his face. Then he looks at the sticky-note. His face goes pale. (Kurt is pretty sure that it’s not healthy for a person to rain the blood from their face so quickly.) Blaine’s hands are shaking.

“This… this is how you sign your name?”

Kurt is confused.

“Of course it is.”

Blaine takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly- this was really rare. And he wasn’t even sure if Kurt would… 

“I need to show you something.”

Blaine tries not to think about it, just yanks the sleeve of the uniform up past his left wrist. Kurt gasps and grabs his hand.

Kurt E. Hummel

The signature on Blaine’s wrist matches the neatly scrawled signature on the piece of paper on the table.

Kurt gapes unseemingly for a moment, unable to believe what he was seeing.

The almost silvery script across the thick of Blaine’s wrist is undeniably his. Kurt grabs Blaine’s hand and pulls it closer to look. Blaine lets him, still shocked, and sits there passively while Kurt traces the letters reverently. His eyes are wide when they meets Blaine’s. Kurt is afraid that they’ll burst into tears here in the common room.

“Is…is there anywhere more private we can go?” His voice is crackly as he tries to subdue his emotions.

Blaine gives him a jerky nod before standing and gesturing for Kurt to follow. They move silently through the halls, both wrapped up in their own thoughts.

It was practically unheard of for people to find their soulmate so young. Kurt wondered if Blaine’s family was one of the more traditional families that would want them to get married right away so as to preserve the sanctity of their bond, or one of the types of people who believed that a bond like their was a heinous crime. He knew that his dad would be fine with him taking it at whatever pace they wanted to. But up until about ten minutes ago, Kurt hadn’t even thought that he would ever meet his soulmate.

Blaine was focusing on not freaking out. He’s you soulmate, your literal other half, who loves you no matter what. Accepts every bit of you for who you are. And if Kurt didn’t… couldn’t…. This wasn’t helping at all.

Kurt followed Blaine across the quad to the dorms, up a flight of stairs to a sparsly decorated dorm room. A couple pictures of girls in flowing dresses adorned the walls, and a few movie posters. But there was very little personalization in the room as Kurt looked around and then sat down on the empty bed across from Blaine’s. Blaine sat as well, and they stared at each other for a long moment.

Kurt huffed out a short laugh.

“This, this is crazy.” He ran a hand over his face. “Absolutely insane.”

“Tell me about it.” Blaine agreed in a shaky voice.

Kurt couldn’t just sit still with his soulmate sitting in the same room as him. He stood up and paced the small room, pausing the fiddle with some papers on the desk. He froze suddenly, staring at them. His heart dropped to the floor.

“Is, is this how you spell your name?” He stared at the signature at the top of the paper. This could not be happening. This was the sort of the thing that only happened in bad rom-coms.

“Um, yes?” Blaine was confused, but didn’t dare hope. There was no way.

Kurt dropped the paper back on the desk. He could feel the tears burning at the back of his eyes. Of course it was too good to be true. Things like this didn’t just happen to him this easily.

“Blaine, I’m so sorry. I’m…” His breath hitched as he tried not to cry. “I’m not your soulmate.”

Blaine felt lightheaded.

“But, your handwriting matched and everything and I just know…”

Kurt just shook his head.

“No, it wrong. I’m not the Kurt you’re looking for- you don’t spell your name the same as my Blayne.”

“But my handwriting matches, right?” Blaine asked desperately. Kurt couldn’t leave, not when he was here and could stay, could maybe understand… “Please, please let me see?”

Kurt turned around, a sad smile on his face, eyes glossy with held in tears. He held out his glove-covered wrist. Blaine took a deep breath before tugging the glove off of Kurt’s hand and flipping it over.

It was all Blaine could do to stop from bursting into tears.

There on Kurt’s pale wrist, in Blaine’s loopy handwriting, was the name

Blayne Anderson

Kurt was surprised to suddenly find himself with an armful of shaking Blaine. Blaine clutches him tightly, trying and failing to stop from crying.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it was you….”

Kurt slowly sinks down onto the bed, still holding Blaine. He rubs his soulmate’s back and murmurs soothing nonsense until the sobbing and shaking subside. Blaine sits back after a moment, wiping away tears.

“Sorry, about that, I…”

“It’s okay.” Kurt cuts in. “I’m just… a little lost right now. Care to explain?”

Blaine takes a deep breath.

Blaine’s not sure where to start. How do you explain to you soulmate that you’re not exactly what they were expecting?

(Don’t be stupid, that little voice scolds - Kurt is your soulmate, he already loves you. Blaine would like it very much if the little voice would just shut up.)

“Um, can we sit down?” A squeaky voice, very attractive Blaine.

“Sure.”

Kurt sits down on the bed warily and watches as Blaine fidgets in the middle of the room for a moment. Best to just get it over with.

“I, um…” Blaine takes a deep breath and tries to summon up the confidence that Blayne always seems to carry with such ease. “I don’t… match up. With my body, on the inside. I’m…. that’s how I’d spell my name if I, if I matched.”

Blayne is dimly aware that she’s shaking, her hands shoved into her blazer pockets to try and stop them. She stares at Kurt pleadingly, begging him to understand what she was trying to tell him.

Kurt is frowning, head tilted to the side as he looks at her. She can practically hear his brain whirring.

Inspiration hits her and she hurries over to her dresser and digs to the bottom of her underwear drawer (all boxers that she loathes, but she didn’t dare try and sneak any of her panties into a school full of boys.) She snatches the shiny paper up from it’s hiding place with a small crow of triumph. Thank you, Cooper.

She hands it to Kurt hesitantly.

“That’s Blayne.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

She’d flown out to stay with Cooper for a month of the summer after the Sadie Hawkins incident- her parents name for it not hers. They’d said that the change of scenery would do her good, let her get away from Ohio for a while. Cooper had greeted her at the airport with a wide grin and bone-crushing hug.

“How’re you doing, squirt? Nice cast- did you bedazzle it yourself?”

“Don’t call me that. And it’s not bedazzled, it’s just glitter. One of the little girls at the hospital decorated it.” And it’s not like I’ve got any friends to sign it anyway, she added to herself.

“That shit’s gonna get every where. I’ll dig up a plastic bag for you to wrap it in so you do’t get it all over my car.” Cooper had grabbed her luggage and started towards the parking lots. “We’ll go get you set up in my spare room, order some dinner, and then have a girl’s night in.”

She’d almost tripped over her own feet at his wording.

“What?”

“Oh, and I’m dragging you along to a photo shoot my friend’s doing tomorrow. Real up-and-comer, I’m telling you. In a few years everyone will know her name. She’s offered to do some head-shots for me if I model for her shoot. Do you mind?”

“…Do I have a choice?”

“Nope!” Cooper replied cheerfully.

“Then I guess I don’t.” She’d sighed and slumped down in her seat. It was going to be a long four weeks.

The next day, as promised, Cooper dragged her to a warehouse just outside of the city. There were a few people hurrying around to set various things up, but Cooper seemed unfazed by the hustle and bustle. Spotting something, he grinned and told Blaine to hurry up.

“Hey! Emily!”

A tall, heavy-set woman with hair in neat cornrows spun around at Cooper’s call. Her eyes lit up.

“Cooper, mon amour, prunelle de mes yeux!” She grabbed his face and planted bright red kisses on his cheeks. “You are very nearly late, and who did you bring with you?”

Blaine had frozen a few steps back when the woman had spoken. Her voice was dark and rich and roughly an octave and a half lower than his own. Her friendly smile faltered for a moment. Cooper, oblivious as always, hooked an arm around Blaine’s shoulders.

“Emily, this is my favorite little sibling, Blaine. Blaine this is Emily, photographer extraordinaire.”

Emily extended a hand to Blaine.

“Any friend of Cooper’s is a friend of mine, I’m sure.”

Blaine had shaken her hand in a daze.

“It’s a good thing you don’t know our parents then.”

Blaine hadn’t noticed how Cooper’s face fell ever so slightly and Emily’s smile had become that much more tense.

They’d quickly moved on to the pictures. The theme of the shoot was something about reflections or portrayals or something- it had kind of gone over Blaine’s head when Emily was explaining it. She’d whisked Cooper off to do his makeup and put him in costume, leaving Blaine to sit and watch the proceedings.

It was a long few hours, and as they were winding down, Emily had a approached Blaine and asked if everyone in Cooper’s family was as photogenic. Blaine had laughed.

“The shoot’s about reflecting the real you into the camera.”

“Is that why you dressed Coop up as a Ken Doll?”

“Shush- you are cheeky like your brother. Would you like to do a couple pictures?”

“Um, sure.”

“Excellent. Go and find outfits that reflect who you are. I will catch up to you in a moment.”

Blaine had wandered over to the clothing racks and stared, biting her lip. Her eyes stayed on the beautiful dresses that were all trailing silks and shining skirts. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she lifted an olive-green high heel from the bottom of a rack and tried to put it on. It was too big, and hard to balance on, but…

“Don’t be ridiculous, honey. That is not your color.”

She jumped as Emily appeared out of nowhere, teetering in the tall shoe. Emily rummaged around through some boxes for a moment before pulling out a pair of bright pink heels.

“These are much more your style.”

She held them out and Blaine took them cautiously, stepping out of the ill-fitting shoe and sliding the pink ones on. They did fit much better. She stepped over in front of the long mirror next to the racks. The shoes looked ridiculous with her outfit.

“I’ve got a dress to go with those, if you want?” Emily asked cautiously.

Blaine bit her lip. Then nodded quickly. There was no going back now.

Emily had clapped her hands in excitement and pulled together an outfit. She’d sat Blaine down and carefully traced eye makeup onto her face. She’d held up a dark, curly wig with a questioning look and Blaine had said yes without thinking about it.

She stood in front of the mirror and stared at herself. She barely recognized herself. The dress hid her unsightly adam’s apple, and was just loose enough on her frame that the hollow cups of the bra didn’t matter. Striped stockings made her legs look slim and long. Glittery pink eyeshadow dusted her eyelids and the makeup softened the sharp angles of her face. Blaine thought that she might cry.

Emily took a quiet picture as Blaine stared into the mirror.

“Ready?”

They’d taken a dozen pictures, with Emily promising to send them along. Cooper had watched quietly from the sidelines as Emily posed Blaine.

It had been Cooper’s idea to use a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’ to help her differentiate Blaine from Blayne. He said that he’d always wanted a younger sister anyway and they’d spent the night curled up on the sofa watchingVictor/Victoria.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Kurt stared at the picture as his soulmate sat down on the bed next to him.

“Say something?” Blayne asked nervously.

Kurt tapped the picture.

“This, is you as you?”

Blayne just nodded, not trusting her voice. Kurt huffed out a laugh.

“Well, my dad’ll be surprised. I’d anticipated my soulmate being a boy.”

Blayne couldn’t breathe.

He smiled at her.

“And I think you’re beautiful, either way.”

Blayne felt herself slump with relief. Kurt set the picture down and pulled her into a hug.

“You’re my soulmate, Blayne.” He stroked her hair gently, making a face she couldn’t see at the amount of gel. “My beautiful Blayne.”

They both knew that they still had a lot of talking to do- they barely knew each other even if they felt as though they always had. It wasn’t always going to be easy, but they also knew that they could make it through anything life threw at them.

They were soulmates after all.

Fin


End file.
